This is my first Reddit post, and what better to post about than my journey through building my own squat rack. Just to give some background before we begin, this is gonna be a TL;DR post for some, so I'll put costs, and time spent, as well as the materials needed to make this monster at the beginning because I enjoy overanalyzing everything. If you decide to skip to the quick and dirty info just scroll to the, "DUDE YOU ARE REALLY BORING, JUST GIVE ME THE INFO" section.
So this whole DIY power rack build, which was comparable to ice fishing, due to it being very cold where I live, and standing in one place for hours doing just one motion, stemmed from the fact that I'm a cheap ass, I'm an engineer and think I can build anything. I've had my eye on Rogue fitness equipment ever since my broke college self decided that when I finally graduated and got a job, I'd buy a Rogue power rack. Little did I know that when you get more money, you get more problems. So I began my obsessive journey to designing my own version of the Rogue R-3 power rack. For those of you who don't know what that is, or how dope these racks are, here is the link to the rack that my ugly stepchild is related to.
http://www.roguefitness.com/rogue-r-3-power-rack
DUDE YOU ARE REALLY BORING, JUST GIVE ME THE INFO
So I'll post the PDF file of the CAD drawings I drew up for this build in a link to either Dropbox or Google Drive if enough people request it, but here are the steel sizes, lengths, and quantities, as well as the extra materials to actually build it. The prices will be at the beginning of the material section.
TIME TO COMPLETE: 30ish HOURS
*STEEL $300.25: * (4) 3x2x1/8 Steel Tubing @ 90" length (4) 3x1x1/8 Steel Tubing @ 30" length (1) 3x1x1/8 Steel Tubing @ 40" length (1) 1-1/2" Standard Steel Pipe @ 40" length (2) 3" Standard Steel Pipe @ 40" length (2" is fine, just not as strong) (2) 5/8" Round Steel Bar @ 42" length (4) 1/4"x5"x5" Flat Steel Plate (10) 1/4"x2"x8" Flat Steel Plate (2) 1/4"x3"x7" Flat Steel Plate
*MISC * (3-4) 11/16" Bosc Hole Saw Bits: $12-15 Bosc Hole Saw Pilot Head (Needed to connect hole saw) $~12 Steel Cutting Fluid (Home Depot) $8 (24) 5/8" Steel (All thread, or half threaded) Bolts $~48 (24) 5/8" Steel Nuts $~7 (24) 5/8" Steel Washers (I bough in boxes of 24 one for each side of the bolt) $~12 Paint and primer of your choice (I suggest liquid paint, but spray paint would be fine) $Depends on brand but around $25 Silver Sharpies $Priceless, and about $2
So far the total comes to around $427.25, I needed to borrow a drill press from a friend, I know many people own them so if you don't own one, chances are you know someone who does. Even if I bough a drill press, I do not consider that a cost because you can use it for other projects etc. Also I don't know how to weld, don't have a welder, and am a poor excuse of a DIYer but I ended up paying someone about $100 to weld up all the pieces. Again if you ask around you'll be able to find someone who can weld it up for you, or you can do it yourself. So this does add into the cost for me. So our running total is at a whopping $527.25. You may get more or less depending on a few things, but this was my cost. Now before I get yelled at for the R-3 being only $695 through Rogue, it does cost an extra $124 to ship to me bringing it to a total of $819. Now you could argue that my time is worth money, but unless you're Mark Cuban, your time really isn't money because most of us know that we either spend our time binge watching The Office, or trudging through endless amounts of useless internet posts (like this one). So there we have it, I saved about $291.75 building this myself.
TIME TO WATCH BOB THE BUILDER
So now we have our materials, and our borrowed/bought/stolen drill press. Again, I'll post the PDF plans for hole spacing yada yada as soon as I can. So once you've got the plans printed, your garage prepped, and your iHome up to 11 blasting Coheed and Cambria (or whatever gets your cerebrum hot and bothered), start marking up your steel by using a tape measure, and the silver sharpies. Measure twice and cut once, so try and get the marks as centered as you can. Now I didn't cut all the holes specified on my plans, you really only need to drill all the flat plate holes, the top three holes on the uprights in each direction, the bottom three holes on the uprights in each direction, and then the holes that run up the narrow side of the four uprights.
Once everything is marked, you'll be ready to drill. Drilling the steel is pretty straight forward, I've never drilled steel before so it was a pain, and I absolutely DO NOT recommend using a hand drill, you'll end up spraining/breaking your wrist, and getting a one way ticket to the loony bin. So you'll clamp the piece of steel to the drill press, make sure it's secured, (you'll mostly only need to secure the plates since they're so light, but being an engineer in training I actually know nothing) and apply a few drops of cutting oil. The pilot bit will start the hole, then add a little more cutting fluid before bringing down the actual hole saw. Go slow, at about ~600 RPM's, and you should be getting nice spiral cut shavings. Eventually you'll get the hang of it and know the right pressure and speed to get quick efficient cuts. It is around 200 holes, and it took me about 1 minute per hole so make sure your playlist is on repeat. I also suggest you upgrade to the hole saw that has the spring in it to pop out the drilled steel pieces (I believe they are the Red Demon brand??), because you'll have to stop the drill at times to remove them from the hole saw.
Congrats, you've cut out all the steel, and can now make a late 90's goth steel necklace/bracelet with all your little steel circles scattered across your floor. So it is time to weld this mofo up, again I have no experience so either get someone to do it for you, or if you have access to a large enough welder to handle the beefy 1/4" steel plate, then have at it my friend.
NOW FOR THE NUTS AND BOLTS So you should have everything welded, drilled, and received your merit badge in "cussing like a sailor", congratulations, you're pretty much at the final stretch. I found it easiest to bolt the 30" cross members to the uprights first, then bolt the 40" pull-up bar, and 40" cross member between them. You can paint it before its all bolted, or after, it was too cold for me to paint so I'll have to paint it in the spring. So now you may be wondering if any of the Rogue equipment will work with your new DIY rack. And good news I've designed it to work with most of the "Infinity Power Rack Series" accessories. You can Modify the uprights to fit any of the pull up bars they sell, and you can change any of the hole spacing for other accessories they sell. I didn't design it to work with every single addition, but we're saving money here, and I didn't have exact spacing for everything. But the following Infinity accessories are what I purchased for my rack since they will work with how I've designed it, and since I designed it to have a 1-1/2" pipe pull-up bar I think most people will be satisfied with that. And don't say that it's too thick for pull-ups, fatter bars increase your grip and forearm strength so thank me later when you've got beefcake forearms.
ROGUE INFINITY ACCESSORIES Rogue Infinity J-Cup Set Rogue Infinity Single Plate Storage Rogue Infinity Matador
WRAP UP Again if you don't enjoy DIY, especially such a large project, it probably took me about 30 hours to complete, then don't bother, and just cough up the money for a power rack. I really enjoy DIY, and have a lot of pride building things myself. I haven't been able to check the Rogue rack accessories just yet, due to having to save up to purchase the extra stuff, but I'm very confident they will all work perfectly, I am an engineer of course, but I didn't sign off the plans so if you bust up yourself lifting in this rack don't come looking for me. I'll be sure to post links to pictures of my rack as is, it's not painted, but then everyone can see that it is possible. Also I'll be sure to post if the Infinity accessories I ordered work. Just incase someone decides to follow in my footsteps, I want to make sure that no one else wastes time, resources and money on all of this.
And that's all folks, I hope people enjoyed this post, I know it was pretty long, but hopefully someone can benefit from it. I didn't feel that many of the photos fit in order so I've included all the imgur links below, they should give you a good idea of the process.
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